Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced today it arrested two Santa Fe men and one women from El Salvador earlier this month, on June 13 and 14.
In recent weeks, rumors have swelled in town about apprehensions taking place at restaurants and other workspaces. One person who works at an establishment rumored in a Facebook group to have been visited by ICE agents describes a climate of fear at businesses across the city.
"It's like every morning we wake up with our fingers crossed, saying prayers," the person told SFR. "People come in and use the Internet, and we're like, 'Is this an agent?'"
Details about recent ICE actions are difficult to corroborate because affected sources fear reprisal and do not want to go on the record. But multiple people have described to SFR the use of deceptive tactics by ICE, like pretending to be customers in order to lure people out into the open.
In April, SFR reported that ICE agents made up a story about being customers from out of town in order to serve immigration audit forms to the Santa Fe Tree Farm, located in the Agua Fría historic village. The Santa Fe-based immigrant organizing group Somos Un Pueblo Unido, a resource for immigrants facing deportation, did not return multiple voicemails or a text from SFR by publication time.
Yesterday, protesters gathered across the country to protest the separation of children from parents by ICE, part of the agency's mission to apprehend and deport anybody in violation of civil immigration law. At least three people were arrested at a protest inside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.
A political movement to outright abolish the agency has quickly enlisted some prominent Democratic politicians around the country.
In a press release, ICE described the three apprehended individuals as a 46-year-old man with a final order of removal dated April 14, 2005; a 38-year-old man who had previously been ordered for removal on Sept. 16, 2005; and a 32-year-old woman who was ordered removed by an immigration judge on May 19, 2014.
